CORONAVIRUS COMFORT

Yesterday was a milestone in the Time of the Coronavirus.  No, it wasn’t the new number of deaths or new infections.  Nor the number of test kits, swabs, reagents, and PPE delivered to lucky governors and mayors who won the Matter of Life and Death Lottery.  No, it was a much more significant, a much happier, milestone.   

Yesterday was the tenth birthday of The Kittens, aka The Idiots, better known as Calyx (who sometimes goes by The Big ‘Un, Rosebud, Flaw Paw, Baby Boy, or Mr. Biggie Large) seen below,

and China Blue (whose sobriquets are Little Sweetie Girl, Little Boo, and Honey Bunny), seen below.  

So I want to give a quick, day-late-and-a-dollar-short, shout-out to the two fur balls who make my day worth getting out of bed for.   And to their mother Orontea (below), aka Mama Tee One Time and The Tea Meisterin, for whom I played birth coach ten years ago.

For The Kittens, (and they will always be The Kittens, regardless of the passage of time), living as they do without a calendar or an iPhone message bing thing, it was a day like any other day.  And that’s the thing.  In the Time of the Coronavirus, the cats are a great comfort and a point of reference.  They ground me.  Their routine never changes, pandemic, no pandemic, it's all the same to them.  Their days consist of verbs and verb phrases, some of which repeat over the course of 24 hours:  Eat, sleep, wake up and stretch, cuddle, chase, disappear a tin foil ball under a piece of furniture, eat, hop into an open closet, poop (not in the closet), pee in synchrony when we do, cry to be let out of the closet, scratch something they shouldn't, eat some more, chomp off a tulip bloom, puke, sleep.  It’s a full life.

And they’re a big part of mine.  They are a constant source of amusement, affection, diversion, and a daily reminder of how the repeating rhythms of life remain unchanged, even in a pandemic.  I love them for this.  They are essential workers in my currently circumscribed world, and they're keeping me as cozy as this comforter. 

So, grab a kitty if you’ve got one, and hold on tight to life as it was, is, and ever will be.  Because in these pandem(on)ic times, yesterday is the same as today and tomorrow.

Keep it real!  Wear your mask!

Marilyn